


Better Off UnTed

by Eisoj5



Category: Better Off Ted
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 19:33:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eisoj5/pseuds/Eisoj5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Veronica has a special request for Phil and Lem.  Things go...poorly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better Off UnTed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [innie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/innie/gifts).



*****

Later, they would all agree that it was a good thing Linda was on vacation.

*****

In truth, there was no good reason for Phil to be getting a cup of coffee on that floor that morning. He had already had one at home (the generic brand his wife liked to buy because it was always on sale) and he'd had another downstairs (the generic brand Lem liked to buy because it brewed the most efficiently).

But there Phil was, pouring his third cup (the generic brand Veridian Dynamics bought because it was the absolute cheapest by the bean) and wondering if he felt he had to drink coffee for social appearances or if he truly enjoyed the--

"Phil." The voice sent chills down his spine.

"You've got me cornered, Veronica," Phil said, backing up. "Literally and figuratively," he added.

Veronica took in the situation with a glance at each wall, but conceded no space to him. "I need you and Lem to make me something." She leaned in close, her eyes narrowing as Phil's widened. "And you can't tell anyone about it. Especially not Ted."

"Especially not Ted, never Ted, I would never tell him anything." His right hand clutched the coffee pot by its handle. Both were shaking. He considered the fact that Veronica was very lucky to escape a waterfall of coffee on her shoes.

"Good. Here's what I want you to do..."

*****

"You have to tell Ted," Lem said definitively. "He would never authorize a personal project like this."

"But it's for _Veronica_," Phil protested. "She's his boss. This goes beyond Ted. I have to do what she tells me--_us_\--to do." __

Lem eyed Phil suspiciously over the edge of his glasses. "This isn't because--"

"No--"

"Because if it was--"

"It's not." Phil affected nonchalance by picking up the nearest beaker and swirling it.

"That's not a glass of wine," Lem muttered. "And further oxygenating the solution will only defeat the purpose of allowing it to sit there undisturbed."

Phil shot him an aggrieved glance and set the beaker back down. It bubbled a bit. "So are we going to get started?"

Lem sighed. "I'm going to tell Ted."

*****

"Why would Veronica want you to do something special for her?" Ted asked.

Phil looked everywhere but at Ted.

Lem looked at Ted. He held up a finger, opened and then closed his mouth. He looked at Phil.

"She said it's a market we haven't tapped into before," Phil tried. "A...niche we haven't explored yet."

Ted raised an eyebrow.

Phil caved like a professional spelunker. "Her shampoo got discontinued by the manufacturer and it's the only kind she can use on her hair because nothing else is good enough to give it the right balance of shine and bounce and--"

"This is over Veronica's _shampoo_?" Ted's other eyebrow inched upwards.

"In a word, yes," Lem said. "Now please tell Phil that you would never allow us to develop products purely for the personal use of Veridian employees."

Ted hesitated. "It might not hurt us to get into styling products," he admitted. "I mean, it is a market Veridian left behind once the company caused the extinction of the emerald morph moth in the late 80s, but I feel confident that the two of you can come up with something."

Phil clasped his hands together. "Thank you--I won't let Veronica--_we_ won't let _you_ down." He nearly skipped out of the office.

Lem blinked at Ted, then followed.

Ted himself waited another thirty seconds before bolting down the hall to Veronica's office.

"Why are you having Phil and Lem make you hair products?"

"Ted." Veronica smiled tightly up at him from her desk. "Why is it that every time I ask someone in your division to keep a secret, they go running to you? And then you come running to me?"

"Because they know that I'll be the one bailing them out in the end when something goes wrong and I like to know what the hell you think you're doing," he replied. "The shampoo? Can't you just...use another one?"

She shook her head. "I _tried_. It all felt wrong to me."

"This doesn't feel wrong?"

"What would you have me do, Ted? I went through all my usual channels. I drove out to the distributor to see if they had any in storage; I bribed the company, but they were too lawyered-up to take me seriously. So I'm calling in a favor downstairs." Veronica shrugged. It was an elegant but minimalist shrug.

"What favor?"

"The favor of continuing to allow Phil to work here, of course." Her smile didn't budge.

Ted sighed. "Shampoo it is. But don't think you're going to get all the free samples just because it was your idea."

*****

A week later, they brought in the product testers.

All of them were blonde.

Lem, rolling his eyes, muttered something under his breath about "good hair" but allowed the tests to proceed.

Phil, on the other hand, protested, pointing out one of the testers in particular. "Her hair isn't enough like Veronica's. It doesn't have the right...shine."

Lem frowned. "I thought the point of the shampoo was to _give_ the hair the right shine. And bounce."

Phil turned to him. "Isn't it ironic that the two men with the least amount of hair in the whole division are working on a shampoo for a woman with glorious amounts of it?"

"Not in the slightest, why?"

"Never mind." Phil glanced at the test subjects, who were vigorously lathering up. A pair of techs measured the height of the foaming action.

"Do you think she'd like it if I added a different fragrance? This doesn't smell the way she usually smells."

Lem's face took on a distinctly more annoyed expression.

"Like tulips," Phil added.

*****

One hour later, they were back upstairs in Ted's office.

"We have a problem," Phil said.

"No, _you_ have a problem." Lem pointed back at him. "If you hadn't agreed to this in the first place--"

"You're the one who shot down my tulip idea--"

"Guys." Ted put both hands up to stop them. "The problem?"

Lem took a step forward. "The shampoo we created. When it contacts water, it releases a...chemical that causes--"

"A chemical?" Ted leaned forward. "What kind of chemical?"

Lem pushed up his glasses hesitantly. "A...I suppose it _could_ be classified as a neurotoxin."

"A _neurotoxin_?"__

"Uh, yes. You see, a reaction occurs when the shampoo mixes with water in the lathering process, releasing the neurotoxin into the hair follicles, which then affects the cerebral cortex through a process we don't yet fully understand, but, at any rate--"

Phil interrupted. "We made zombies."

Ted looked at Lem. "He's exaggerating, right?"

Lem shook his head. "No, sir, we did in fact create zombies."

"Are they fast or slow?"

"Both," Phil said, forlornly.

*****

Veronica looked through the glass at what had once been the heart of the division. A graph sputtered across a fallen computer monitor; a plant was slowly crawling across a desk by its roots, freed of its pot. Seven zombies lurched about. No one mentioned the brainless bodies on the floor.

"Well, it's a good thing they were employees."

"I'm not sure they _all_ were, Veronica." Ted frowned at a long-haired man shaking a pumpkin, bits of foam spattering his immediate surroundings as he did so. "That guy doesn't look familiar."

"Nonsense. They were all employees of Veridian Dynamics." She nodded emphatically. "And as such, I'm sure that when HR checks their files, they will all have the appropriate liability waivers."

"This is hardly an 'act of God or gods'," Ted pointed out.

They both looked at Lem and Phil, who were plastered against the far wall, grasping at each other much as their mothers would have clutched their proverbial pearls.

"No," Veronica agreed.

Nonetheless, the appropriate waivers were in fact located, and despite Ted's expectations to the contrary, the paperwork did include clauses about accidental zombification, with subclauses cross-referencing certain other policies regarding containment.

"We aren't even going to attempt to find a cure?" Ted asked indignantly at the meeting.

"It would be highly unprofitable as well as impractical, from a research standpoint," Veronica said. "We only have seven zombies, after all. As long as they're securely contained within the lab--"

"_Our_ lab," Lem pointed out quietly to Phil.

"Then there's little to worry about," Veronica continued.

Dr. Bhamba stuck his head in the conference room doorway. "The zombies are loose," he said. "I think it may be my fault. I blame the drugs?"

Footage from the one remaining security camera on the research division floor confirmed that it was, for once, genuinely Dr. Bhamba's fault. (Veronica was quite pleased that her scapegoat was functioning precisely as he should.)

"Well, now there are thirteen zombies," Phil said. "Wait, there's the mailroom guy. Fourteen zombies."

"And one of them has a gun," Lem added helpfully.

Veronica was exasperated. "Why didn't the security guard use it? We've done trainings on what to do when one of your experiments breaks free."

"Those usually involved biohazard suits and flamethrowers," Ted told her. "At least they don't seem to be..._actively_ harming anyone," he added, peering closely at the screen. "Look, they haven't even eaten the security guard's brain yet--no, there they go."

Phil, covering his mouth, said, "The electrodes from the jellyfish telepathy experiment were still in there..." Then he fled, Lem following closely behind.

"Well, we can't let the zombies just wander around," Veronica said. "And I suppose we can't fire them, either." She turned to Ted. "So what are you going to do about this?"

Ted shook his head. "Oh no. This tangle's got your name written all over it," he told her. "In conditioner."

She stared at him, slowly raising an eyebrow.

"Okay, that was pretty bad."

*****

Veronica's hair went unwashed for three additional days before Phil and Lem, on her orders, discovered the solution.

"We were reviewing the tapes for the twenty-third time when Lem saw it." Phil cued up the footage on the screen in the conference room and fast-forwarded a bit. The slow zombies appeared to be walking relatively normally at that speed.

Lem nodded. "There, see?"

Ted stared, then squinted at the screen. "I'm not sure..."

"No." Veronica flipped the lights back on. "We don't have time for this. Just tell us how you're--we're--going to deal with the zombies and get back to work on my shampoo."

"They keep going in Lem's office," Phil said. "And look at how they react to Lem's collectible lightsaber. It's almost like moths to a flame."

"So Lem and the zombies share an interest in an expensive toy weapon from a franchise meant for children." Veronica said. "How does that help us?"

"We thought that maybe we could lure them out of the lab with another lightsaber," Lem explained.

"Okay, that's step one," Ted said. "Then what?"

Phil and Lem exchanged glances. "We figured that was the part you cover," Phil said slowly.

Veronica threw up her hands. "Fantastic. Does the acid in the sprinkler system still work?"

Ted shot her a glance. "What else glows green like that? Maybe we can hold their interest in something that'll keep them on the payroll until there's money to fund a cure."

"There's Linda's bioluminescent garden on the roof," Lem offered.

"Too exposed," Phil countered. "Plus, what if one of them shambled right over the side, fell forty stories to the street below, got up, and then started biting people? We'd have an epidemic on our hands."

"Send them over to Weapons, let them play with the lasers," Veronica said. Then she shook her head. "What am I thinking? Insurance won't cover that." She rose to her feet and narrowed her eyes at the scientists. "Figure it out and report back to me. Ted, my office."

Ted waved his hands helplessly at Phil and Lem as he stood up to follow her. "I'd suggest watching a lot of zombie movies, but I don't think any of them cover what to do when you're trying to keep the zombies alive _and_ from eating your brain." He left them pondering that one, with Phil proposing they rent the entire Romero _oeuvre_, regardless.

"You see what's happening to me?" Veronica was pacing her office. "I can't think, not with my hair clinging to my scalp in these filthy, greasy strands."

"It looks fine," Ted reassured her. "And look, if the result is becoming a brain-eating zombie, are you sure you really want Phil and Lem to keep working on a shampoo?"

"First the emerald morph moth, and now this." She sighed. "I guess not. Hey, what brand do you use, Ted?"

"Shouldn't you ask Linda about that kind of thing?"

Veronica laughed. "Her? With that hair? Oh, Ted. No."

*****

"They broke it," Lem said, storming into Ted's office a short while later, Phil trailing, oddly cheerfully, behind him. "They broke my lightsaber."

"I thought you two were going to watch zombies movies as research," Ted said.

"We _were_," Phil told him, "but somebody decided we should check in on the real zombies first, and then got all angry because they were touching--just touching!--his special collectible--"

"Signed," Lem broke in.

"Special signed collectible lightsaber." Phil turned and frowned at him. "Just touching it."

"Zombie touching is not normal people touching." Lem folded his arms and glared back.

"But we did come up with a better idea for what they could do outside the lab," Phil said, turning back to Ted.

*****

The first thing Linda saw when she came back from vacation was a heavily armored, two foot tall robot gliding from cubicle to cubicle, delivering stacks of photocopies in various states of disarray.

The second thing she saw was an odd email in her inbox concerning the making of copies. All documents to be copied were to be sent through office mail to the nineteenth floor, and would be returned in a timely manner.

When she cornered Phil at the coffeemaker about the weird new policy (Ted was avoiding her again), he spilled coffee on her shoes and could only mutter something about hair products.

So Linda went to the nineteenth floor--or tried to, anyway, but was stymied by the discovery that the elevator buttons for floor nineteen were all out of order. (_All_ the elevators' buttons.)

Walking down from the twentieth floor via the stairs, she found that the door was welded shut. She peered intently through the tiny, barred window, but all she could see a few figures moving slowly about down the hall, lit by an eerie green light.

*****

_Veridian Dynamics._

People. Innovation. Brains.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to write a Better Off Ted story for ages now, and I'm so glad I got the chance to do so for Yuletide! (I'm still not sure where the zombie idea came from.) Many thanks to my husband, who was my sounding board and beta all in one. Happy Holidays!


End file.
